Abortion - Archive

Analysis: Dramatic 41% Abortion Drop in Kansas Reveals Seven Trends

The recent release of Kansas Abortion Statistics for 2014 show that the number of abortions continue to decline in the state formerly known as the “Late-Term Abortion Capital of America.”

“Since we have been working in Kansas, abortions have decreased an extraordinary 41 percent. The tactics we developed over the years have been incredibly successful,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, who relocated his organization to Kansas in 2002. “The Kansas abortion statistics prove beyond doubt that when abortion clinics close, lives are saved.”

Newman and his colleague, Cheryl Sullenger, have recently released a new book, Abortion Free, that describes their efforts in Kansas to end late-term abortions and details step by step, how pro-life activists can employ similar strategies to make their communities abortion free. They are considered experts in uncovering abortion abuses and using that information to close down abortion sites.

“Since we began working our plan in Kansas, abortions have steadily declined as abortion clinics closed. This shows that when there are no abortion clinics marketing abortions to pregnant women, the majority are willing to find ways to cope with their challenges in ways that do not involve visits to abortion clinics,” said Newman.

Several notable trends emerge from the 2014 abortion data, specially when taken in context with abortion numbers over past 12 years or more.

Trend 1: Overall abortion numbers continue to decline.
In 2014, the number of abortions in Kansas decreased by three percent over the previous year. This continues a trend of decreasing abortion numbers that began in 2001 when the first of five abortion shops shut down. Since that year, there has been an impressive 41% decrease in abortions in Kansas.

Trend 2: When abortion businesses close, abortion numbers drop.
Trend 3: Surgical abortion numbers are dropping while medication abortions are on the rise.
Trend 4: The late-term barbaric Induction Abortion method has disappeared from Kansas, ending abortions 22 weeks and over.
Trend 5: The percentage of Kansas abortions involving Dilation and Evacuation, also known as Dismemberment abortions, has held relatively steady in Kansas over the past 12 years.
Trend 6: Abortions on out-of-state women have dramatically decreased.
Trend 7: When counties are abortion free, women living in those counties receive fewer abortions…

…Abortion numbers took a dramatic drop in 2009 when George Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services was open for only five months before closing permanently on June 1. Wichita remained abortion-free until April 2013, when South Wind Women’s Center opened for business in Tiller’s old abortion clinic, which sat vacant for nearly four years.

In 2008, the last full year Tiller’s business was open, 1146 Sedgwick County residents obtained abortions. By 2012, that number had fallen to 566 – a stunning 51% decrease in abortions among Sedgwick County residents!

What did women in Sedgwick County do when there was no longer a local business marketing abortions to them? A good number of those women simply did not have them.

But if women truly needed abortions, the number of Sedgwick County women seeking the procedure would have remained stable when the last abortion facility closed. Clearly, that was not the case.

This debunks the notion that when abortion sites close, women will just travel elsewhere to get them.

Since South Wind Women’s Center opened in 2013 and began marketing abortions to women, the number of abortions among Sedgwick County women has risen 32 percent over the past two years for which numbers are available, even while abortions numbers continued to drop in other Kansas Counties.

Marketing creates an artificial “need” for a product that is being sold. When the product is abortion, the results become tragic. Without abortion marketing, most women find that the “need” for abortion simply does not exist.

“In Kansas, we have eliminated abortions after 22 weeks, banned two abortion procedures, closed five abortion clinics, and decreased the total number of abortions by forty-one percent. Our tactics have worked and this data supports that,” said Newman.